Toddy: the fading elixir?

As the Kerala State Government plans to set up of a Toddy Corporation, to revive the sector, stakeholders wait for further details

Photos: The  Mullapanthal Toddy shop; glass of toddy  

By Shevlin Sebastian 

There are several Formica-topped tables with red plastic chairs inside the Mullapanthal Toddy shop, in Tripunithura, a suburb of Kochi. The fans hang down from long rods. On most tables there is a brown earthenware pot which contains toddy. As expected, the aroma is that of masala and spices. Through the large grilled windows, you can see the road outside. Buses, cars and auto-rickshaws whiz past, their horns blaring.  

The crowd on this weekday afternoon is decent when you consider that an Omicron pandemic is raging in the state. There are families, a group of girls and a few men, who are sipping down the white-coloured toddy. Many are having tapioca with fish. Other items on the menu include squid, duck, chicken, prawns, beef, and crabs. 

The mood is upbeat but not so for owner Vijaykumar, 55, who has been running this shop for the past 35 years. “The sale of toddy has been going down,” he said. “Yesterday, I only sold 100 litres of toddy. People come now mostly for the food.”

Vijaykumar gave away 26 shops for the workers to run, because he could not make a profit. Now he only runs three shops. 

One major reason is that many bars have sprung up in the vicinity. When he started out, there were only three bars in a 15-km radius at Tripunithura. “Now there are 20 bars,” says Vijaykumar. “Most people prefer to go to bars, because you get a high much faster with whisky, beer and brandy. In my experience, as soon as a bar comes up near a toddy shop, it immediately experiences losses and has to shut down.” 

In the nearby town of Mulanthuruthy, Vijaykumar was running a toddy shop and had sales of 300 litres a day. When a bar and two outlets of the government-run Kerala State Beverages Corporation opened, the daily sales at his shop fell drastically. 

His labour expenses are high. At his Mullapanthal Toddy shop, Vijaykumar has 27 people on his payroll. They include 14 women in the kitchen, apart from servers and cleaners. “But nowadays, I call up the entire staff only on weekends,” he said. “That’s when we have good business.”    

Meanwhile, the State government has announced that it has plans to set up a Toddy Corporation. The corporation will regulate the functioning of the 5000-odd toddy shops. It will buy and distribute toddy. The corporation also has plans to hand over the shops to workers’ cooperatives. 

Asked about this initiative by the state government, Vijaykumar says that he has not yet heard the details of what they are planning to do. “My concern is whether I will be able to buy the toddy as I do now,” he said. “Will there be too much bureaucracy that will slow down the process?” 

Another problem is that landlords are reluctant to rent out premises to toddy shops. “The people in the locality will object,” said Vijaykumar. “I hope the state government can solve this problem.”

Asked about the clientele for toddy, he said they ranged in age from the mid-thirties to the sixties. “Many of them are locals,” he said. “There are labourers, transport drivers, and office workers.” 

KP Murali is the secretary of the Tripunithura branch of the Toddy Workers Union. It belongs to the Centre of Indian Trade Unions. He said that he had read newspaper reports about a Toddy Corporation, but the union had received no details of the policy. “I cannot comment unless I can read a draft,” he said. 

Like Vijaykumar, he admitted the sale of toddy has been declining. “One of the main reasons is that people are opting for other drinks because the kick is much faster,” he said. “The younger generation prefers drugs like heroin and marijuana. These youngsters want an instant high. That is not possible by drinking toddy. It takes time for the kick to happen. But the youth are impatient.”

Asked about the clientele, Murali says, “They are mostly old people who belong to a different generation.” 

The daily wages for a worker in a toddy shop are Rs 470. This has remained static for the past four years. “Without a steady income, the owners cannot raise salaries,” he said.  

Murali paused and said, “The future does not look rosy.” 

(Published in News9Live.com)

What's in a name?

Photo: President John F Kennedy with his family sailing in the Nantucket Sound

By Shevlin Sebastian 

A former colleague asked me the other day, ‘How did you get the name Shevlin?” 

This is the first time somebody has asked me that question. 

I have spent a lot of time, over the years, thinking about my unusual name. 

So I asked my mother about it. 

She said my father had named the eldest child; so he said it would be her turn to name me. 

Since my sister was born in June, my father decided to call her June. 

But my mother wanted to give me a unique name. When she was pregnant with me, she came across a photo feature in Life Magazine of American President John F Kennedy and his relatives and friends swimming and sailing on the Nantucket Sound, near Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.

When she read one caption, she noticed that one of Kennedy’s relatives or friends had the name of Shevlin. The name struck her. She liked the sound of it. She felt this would be a unique name. It is of Irish origin. And that is how I ended up with it. 

I like this name. And I like it when paired with my surname Sebastian. There is a rhythm and symmetry to it, with the two ‘S’s, especially when you see it in print. 

But early in my career, I realised people could misunderstand the name. When I was working in Sportsworld magazine, I would get letters addressed to ‘Miss Shevlin’. That’s when I realised it is difficult to identify the gender of a person when reading my first name. 

One reader wrote, ‘Apart from your beautiful writing, I am sure you look beautiful, too.’ 

I had to quickly type out a reply informing him I had to disappoint him and that I am, unfortunately, a male. This was the era when we used typewriters. There was no social media or Google where we could type the name of a person and get biographical information about him or her. I didn’t get a reply from this letter-writer. He must have been shocked into silence. 

In Kerala, where I have lived for the past several years, it is almost impossible for most people, especially strangers, to call me Shevlin. Instead, they always call me Shelvin. It has happened so many times that I no longer correct people. Some acquaintances have been calling me Shelvin for years. 

I noticed that a certain group of people — government, corporation and hospital clerks, plumbers, carpenters and electricians — find it difficult to pronounce my name. So, I opted for the easier and more common name of Sebastian. 

Sometimes, people have advised me not to use my name. Once a senior colleague suggested to me, I used a pseudonym when writing erotic stories. “This will damage your image,” he said. But I declined by saying that I was proud of my name and I did not feel any shame in writing erotica. 

Of course, unlike in America, children don’t call their parents by name in India or across Asia. So, my children call me ‘Baba’. This is a tribute to my roots, as I consider myself half-Bengali, having been born and brought up in Calcutta. 

So, thank you, Mom! 

Despite all the niggling issues, I love my name and I loved the creative way you selected this name. 

The arduous task of upholding justice

Former US District Attorney Preet Bharara’s book, ‘Doing Justice – A prosecutor’s thoughts on crime, punishment and the rule of law’ is an eye-opener for ordinary readers and a must-read for those in law enforcement

By Shevlin Sebastian

On March 11, 2004, terrorists blew up four passenger trains in Madrid. 196 people died. 2000 suffered from a devastating injury. After an intensive search, the Spanish National Police (SNP) found a blue plastic bag inside an abandoned van. This contained seven copper detonators. There were two fingerprints on it. These did not match any in the SNP database. They sent the images to Interpol, which forwarded them to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the US. Three fingerprint experts, one after the other, matched it to a single individual.

His name was Brandon Mayfield. He had married a Muslim from Egypt. Following the marriage, Brandon had also converted to Islam. He attended a mosque in Beaverton, Oregon; this was under investigation by the local authorities.

As a lawyer, Mayfield had represented a terrorist, who was convicted of providing material support to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. On May 6, 2004, the FBI took Mayfield into custody, but he protested his innocence.

The SNP also did not accept the finding. Following their investigations, they said the fingerprints matched that of an Algerian national, Ouhnane Daoud. Later, the SNP charged him with 191 counts of murder. The FBI had made a mistake. They conducted an internal investigation. The conclusion: the initial examiner, a senior and experienced forensic investigator, had made an error. The others agreed with him, without doing a vigorous check. Thereafter, the state exonerated Brandon and paid a compensation of $2 million.

Mistakes happen all the time in police investigations. As a result, people have spent decades in jail accused of crimes they have not committed. If this happens in the most sophisticated country in the world, with the most advanced technology, you can imagine the situation in other countries.

Indian-born United States Attorney Preet Bharara recounted this anecdote in his book, ‘Doing Justice — A prosecutor’s thoughts on crime, punishment and the rule of law’.

Some of the chapter headings include, ‘The Truth is Elusive’, ‘Things are not what they seem’, ‘The Need for Rigour’, ‘Curiosity and Query’, and the ‘Principles of Interrogation’.

On the cover, there is a blurb attributed to ‘The Secret Barrister’, which describes the book as ‘bursting with humility and humanity.’

This is true. This is what Preet writes about prisons: ‘Prisons and jails are crucibles of dehumanisation. The very dynamic of a prison rationalises and rewards subjugation. There are many ways to dehumanise people in prison. There is the complete stripping away of privacy; the drab identical uniforms and identification by number, and the en masse herding to meals.

‘The road to hell is paved with laziness. Punitiveness doesn’t require brainpower. Force is easy; restraint is hard. Someone resists. He gets a fist to the head. Someone violates, he gets solitary. It is easy to deal with most problems with brute force.’

One of the most interesting stories is that of the Luftwaffe investigator, Hanns Scharff. As Preet wrote: ‘He became known as the slyest and most effective stealer of secrets in Germany. His style was gentle, his manner soft. He posed as every captured pilot’s greatest ally and advocate. He fed them and he joked with them. Scharff famously took nature walks with his POWs, who strolled unrestrained, as long as they promised they would not try to escape. He relied on trust and intellect and took advantage of their human need for contact and kinship. And POW after POW dropped his guard with such frequency that Scharff became the stuff of legend throughout the Luftwaffe.’

This was in stark contrast to the Gestapo, which always used harsh interrogation methods. As Scharff said, “Soft words do more than hard blows.” Or, as Preet said, “Strategy beats savagery and patience outperforms force.”

After the war, Scharff migrated to America and settled in California. The US Air Force invited Scharff to give speeches to military audiences about his methods. They incorporated most of his techniques into the military curriculum.

But Scharff did not bask in his achievements. Since he had studied textile design as a young man, Scharff became a mosaic artist and had a highly successful career. His art was seen all over the world and he was much respected. Scharff, who never married, died on September 10, 1992, at 84. To know more, you can read the book, ‘The Interrogator: The Story of Hanns Scharff, Master Interrogator of the Luftwaffe’ by Raymond F Toliver.

As for Preet’s book, it is studded with insights about policing and crime.

Here are a few:

‘Speed is an investigator’s best friend and its worst enemy. Speed is your friend because some evidence evaporates like a puddle in the sun. But undue speed can cause you to overlook evidence or misinterpret it.

An investigator must maintain a near-impossible balance between patience and impatience.

Every conclusion must be subject to challenge and revision. This is hard because human beings have egos. That stubbornness can cause tremendous injustice.

Self-doubt in moderation is animating and motivating, not paralysing. Leaders who have purged themselves of all self-doubt will not be leaders for long and dangerous while in command. I learned over time that self-doubt was my friend and arrogance, my enemy.

You can always find that bit of humanity inside a criminal if you look hard enough. Find that moment of connection, not that lever of fear.’

Overall, Preet’s book is a must-read for those in law enforcement. This is more so in India, where third-degree methods are the go-to method, to extract information of any kind. However, most information gleaned this way ends up becoming unreliable. As a result, many offences remain unresolved. So, the police adopt the easy way out: they charge innocent people with the crime.